


Just a Voice

by sempre_balla



Category: CLAMP - Works, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eavesdropping, Fluff, M/M, featuring kurogane's gay panic and best friends subaru and fai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 16:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14856627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sempre_balla/pseuds/sempre_balla
Summary: Kurogane can't afford an appartment with thick walls, so it really isn't his fault that he can overhear the entire conversation his neighbor is having with a friend. It's not his fault either that said friend has a very, very attractive voice.





	Just a Voice

**Author's Note:**

> my stupid idiot brain: hey i know you're on finals and that you have to work on the kurofai multichapter fic you actually care about, but how about you don't do that and spend your energy on a dumb drabble  
> me, beating it with a stick: no!! no!!! no!!!!

Kurogane doesn’t have a lot of money. He refuses to leech off of his parents’ already scarce paycheck, and Aunt Sonomi’s millionaire status sort of pisses him off a little, so he refuses her help too. He’s still studying, and even when he took a year to save up money to go to college, rent and tuition fees kick anyone’s ass and part time jobs can’t grant him anything other than a shitty apartment in a shitty building with a terrifying witch of a landlady and _very_ thin walls.

The fact that he has nice enough neighbors brings him comfort, at least. Kohaku from upstairs makes _no_ noise when walking, so he can forgive the fact that they’re clumsy as hell and have a really fucking obnoxious cat that seems to have a thing for bullying its owner. Sumeragi from next door is also quiet and good-mannered, and he has a really fucking obnoxious sister with no concept of indoor voice. He can forgive Sumeragi too though, because he does try to make his evil twin shut up when she goes wild, and gods know that whenever Tomoyo comes over she makes a ruckus too.

The thing is—the fucking thing is—the walls are thin. Kurogane cannot stress this enough, they’re _thin_. And loud noises filtering through walls are one thing, but perfectly normal conversations doing so is another one. He’s laying on his bed trying to sleep at 11pm on a Friday night because he’s a loser and has a shift the next morning, but Sumeragi has someone over in the next room and, muffled as it may be, Kurogane can clearly hear their conversation. Kurogane knows their bedrooms are connected through the wall, so he’s never had this problem before because Sumeragi doesn’t bring his sister in there. But whoever is there isn’t his sister, it’s someone with a soft, melodic voice that apparently brought alcohol with them if the noise of ice and glasses clinking and the slowly increasing volume of their conversation means anything.

Now, Kurogane isn’t someone who sticks his nose in other people’s business. He’s not an eavesdropper and he’ll never be one, but his neighbor and company are threading a thin fucking line at the moment. They’re too quiet for him to feel justified to complain and tell them to quiet down, but they’re too loud for him to be able to tune them out completely. So he’s technically eavesdropping. But he’s not an eavesdropper. He’s literally being forced into it.

And Sumeragi’s company has a very nice voice, maybe. Kind of. Low and flirty, someone who isn’t Kurogane would say it’s velvety—but not him, god forbid, Kurogane doesn’t describe things as _velvety_. Point is, it’s nice to listen to, and it’s not like he has a choice anyway.

“Hokuto-chan’s endorsing you?” The voice is saying. “Really?”

“Why does it feel like you’re asking me why my twin is enabling my bad life choices? Endorse is a strong word, Fai,” Sumeragi answers.

Fai is a nice name. Fai sounds like their own voice, in a way. It’s a nice name.

“Because my twin _doesn’t_ endorse my bad life choices,” they say.

“Seishiro-san isn’t a bad life choice!” Sumeragi protests.

“He’s a psychopath.”

“He’s not!”

“Subaru, look at me. Look at me. From one gay disaster to the other. He’s a psychopath.”

Gay disaster, huh? Does that mean Fai is a man? Kurogane guesses he sounds like a man. Like a pretty man. A pretty gay man.

Kurogane knocks his knuckles on his forehead and grunts, embarrassed. He knows he hasn’t gotten laid in quite some time but for fuck’s sake this is just a voice he’s hearing. Sumeragi’s a good guy, but Kurogane wishes that this friend of his isn’t attractive at all and that he kicks puppies for a living or something. If he’s going to have an attractive voice everything else has to be unattractive or Kurogane will be mad.

“He’s _charming_. And clever.” Sumeragi sighs dreamily, and Kurogane can almost see those huge green eyes of him sparkling. “And so, so handsome.”

“And so, so much older than you.”

“Stop that! I’m twenty-four, him liking me back isn’t creepy when we’re both consenting adults.”

“He makes it creepy because he has creepiness ingrained in his DNA,” is the childish response that Fai comes up with. Kurogane hears the sound of someone pouring another glass.

“Enough! You’re only being like this because your standards are too high!” Sumeragi says, rising his voice to a volume Kurogane has never heard before. He used to think his neighbor was the calmest person he’d ever met, but this Fai guy seems to be able to get a rise out of him quite easily. Not that Kurogane can blame him. There’s a wall and the fact that they’re literal strangers separating them, yet he’s still feeling kind of irritated by Fai’s attitude.

“And your standards are too low if you’re gonna be going around falling for your friendly neighborhood sociopath.”

“He’s not a— I-I’m not _falling_ , it’s just a crush!”

“He looks like a serial killer, yes you _are_ falling, and f-y-i my standards could be way higher, mind you.”

“You won’t even look at guys that are shorter than you, Fai.”

“Oh, shush. That’s not that bad.”

“It is when you tower over _everybody_ , Fai. You’re very tall.”

Kurogane, resident stay-in-his-lane guy, the very opposite of a busybody, finds himself awfully curious about two things. One, this psychopath Sumeragi seems to be in love with, because Fai is either exaggerating a whole damn lot or Sumeragi just _looks_ like he has common sense. Two, how tall Fai is exactly, and if Kurogane would be able to tower over him. He imagines that’d be satisfying, somehow, towering over a guy that apparently towers over _everybody_. That’s all there is to it.

“And yet I’ve still had relationships with taller men, my dear Subaru.”

“Yeah, because those ended extraordinarily well,” Sumeragi says with obvious sarcasm, and Kurogane hears a dull thud and the sound of something being knocked over. “You can hit me all I want, it’s the truth.”

“Now you’re just being unfair,” Fai retorts, and if Kurogane thought it safe to make assumptions about a stranger, he’d think that he sounds suddenly crestfallen. “It’s not like I wanted them to be that bad.”

Kurogane opens his eyes and sits up, crossing his legs and staring into the darkness. Reminding himself that he’s a realist that doesn’t get carried away by silly impulses, and that feeling a pang of _something_ in his chest just because this stranger sounds lonely and he’s lonely as well is stupid. It’s just a voice. Fai is just a voice.

“I… I’m sorry, Fai. You can tell Hokuto-chan that I was this cruel so she can give me a scolding later.”

Fai laughs at that, and it’s a beautiful sound. Just a sound from just a voice, but beautiful nonetheless.

“I don’t need to call your sister so she can be mad at you, silly. Apology accepted.”

“Yes you can, because you won’t get mad at me. So someone has to.”

Silence follows, and all Kurogane can hear is the clock ticking on his nightstand. It’s gotten late, and he has to stop listening to a conversation he’s not meant to be a part of and sleep, but he knows he can’t now. Maybe he _should_ go over and tell them to quiet down.

“You don’t ever get mad for yourself either,” Fai says, then chuckles. “But I _guess_ you’re right. Tall guys are hard to find, but it’s so cozy to cuddle people bigger than you...”

Sumeragi laughs lightly too.

“To be honest, the only people I know that I think are taller than you are my landlady and the neighbor next door.”

Oh, so Kurogane’s taller. How much taller, he wonders. How small would Fai be to him, he wonders.

He suppresses a groan and digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. He doesn’t even know how Fai looks like, for fuck’s sake. Fai doesn’t even know he exists. This is ridiculous.

“Yeah, I’ve met Yuuko, but am I hearing things right? Have you been hiding a hot neighbor from me?”

Kurogane hates to admit it, but his heart starts pounding a little faster at that.

“I mean, he’s not my type, but I’d say he’s prototypically hot? About a head taller than you and a little grumpy.”

“So not a psychopath, a head taller than me _and_ grumpy?” Fai says, and Sumeragi sounds like he’s choking on his drink. Fai ignores the coughs to giggle like a schoolgirl. “Oh my god, introduce him to me.”

“I don’t even know him much! And he scares me a little, he’s always glaring.” There’s a small pause, and then Subaru adds, “And Seishiro-san isn’t a psychopath! Psychopaths aren’t my type!”

“Christ, your grumpy neighbor scares you but your serial killer boyfriend doesn’t? And then people say I’m the weird one.”

“He’s not— We’re not—!”

“I’ll take it your neighbor is _super_ sexy and super single and super ready to receive my number?”

 _Enough is enough_ , Kurogane thinks as he gets up from his bed and rushes to the door. He takes a few deep breaths because he’s fucking blushing because this is really embarrassing and because the fact that he’s _hoping_ that he’s up to Fai’s standards is the most pathetic thing he’s ever felt. The anticipation coiling in his gut is damn ridiculous as well, because Sumeragi will probably be the one to answer the door anyway, and he’s just going over to tell them to shut the hell up and let him have a lonely life full of boring feelings. At least boring feelings aren’t mortifying.

He grabs his keys and steps out into the corridor, barefoot and all. Thank the heavens it’s not hot enough for him to start sleeping shirtless yet, because he has the feeling he would have forgotten to put a shirt on if that was the case.

Not that he’s doing this to impress Fai. God fucking damnit. He knocks on Sumeragi’s door and wishes, for his own sanity, that Fai is ugly as hell and that he still kicks puppies for a living.

Faint clattering and fast footsteps are heard from the inside of the apartment, and Kurogane waits not-so-patiently with his arms crossed. The door opens and Sumeragi pokes his head out of it, his eyes widening impossibly when he sees Kurogane. It only occurs to him then that these two had only just been talking about how scary and prototypically hot he was and that Kurogane appearing at their doorstep only a few seconds later is not only comical, but also looks like some cliché right out of a shitty romance movie.

Not that this is a fucking romance. Fai’s probably gonna stay in the bedroom anyway because he’s probably a lazy person, so Kurogane opens his mouth to talk.

The words die in his throat, however, when a blond man steps into the doorway, halfway behind Sumeragi, with a curious look in his— shit, his eyes are _stunning_. _He’s_ stunning. It’s near summer but for some fucking reason this prince-looking asshole is wearing a tight black turtleneck and skinny jeans, which is ridiculous because it’s way too hot for that outfit and his legs are _really_ long and Sumeragi’s blocking the view, dammit.

“Hi— oh,” the blond says with Fai’s voice because Fai is not a voice anymore, now he’s the most attractive guy Kurogane has ever seen and he better kick puppies for a living because if Kurogane can’t cling onto some fatal flaw he’s going to go _insane_. “ _Hi_. Hello.”

 _Hi hello my ass,_ Kurogane thinks, regretting his choices in life very much.

“Um, Kurogane-san?” Sumeragi asks, snapping Kurogane out of his gay panic. “Do you need something?”

“Ku-ro-ga-ne?” Fai says slowly, his pretty lips curving into a pretty smile that’s just a tad too cocky and makes Kurogane want to punch this dude’s face. “That’s a mouthful. Do people call you any nicknames?”

Kurogane clears his throat and tries his best to ignore Fai’s entire existence to glare down at Sumeragi, who technically hasn’t done anything wrong but also deserves to suffer for bringing Fai into his life.

“I’ve got an early shift tomorrow and you’re being loud,” he explains. He glances at Fai briefly, who’s unabashedly ogling Kurogane’s arms.

Alright, _fuck_. He seems interested. He seems like he _really_ likes what he sees, actually. Kurogane can’t decide if this is very good or very bad.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! We’ll quiet down, I promise,” Subaru says, bowing his head slightly.

“Would moving to the living room work?” Fai asks, casually leaning on the doorway and casually looking very good. “You’ve commented how thin these walls are before, right, Subaru?”

“Oh,” Kurogane says, quite surprised at that kind of thoughtfulness. He would have had enough with them quieting down, honestly. He wonders if asking _hey, by any chance, do you happen to be a terrible person that kicks puppies for a living?_ would be inappropriate. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Kuro-tan!” Fai says cheerfully before slamming the door on his face.

When he gets back to his room, pissed that he didn’t even get to call out the blond idiot for that stupid nickname, the two next door are still picking up their shit from the room. He hears Fai practically squeal that okay, maybe Kurogane looks a little like a serial killer too, _but it doesn’t matter, Subaru, oh my god, he’s so cute, I’m coming over every day from now on._

And Kurogane, number one hater of the thin walls in this shitty apartment building and enthusiastic fan of peace and quiet, is surprised to find how little he minds that.

**Author's Note:**

> in the end i haven't studied today but, eh, this was really fun to write anyway. you can find me at my [tumblr](http://cinnadiaphos.tumblr.com/) if you wanna see me waste my time some more!!


End file.
